Editorial: Ethics code should be revisited

Monday, June 24, 2002 | 9:03 a.m.

In the spring of 2000 a lobbyist, David Wood, approached city of Henderson staffers with a plan for a new redevelopment area. This was a little unusual, as cities themselves ordinarily initiate their own redevelopment plans, selecting the most blighted parcels for inclusion in a program that offers public money to developers willing to reinvigorate the area. The lobbyist had been a city councilman just 10 months previously. That was more unusual, as most cities -- Las Vegas, for example -- require ex-councilmen to wait a couple of years before they can lobby the people who used to report to them. Nevertheless, the staffers drafted a redevelopment area based on the lobbyist's plan and presented it to the city's redevelopment board. And there began a highly unusual aspect of this process.

Two members of the city's redevelopment board at that time, Chairman Barry Fieldman and Bob Unger, were minority owners and managers of Commerce Associates. This company owned 525 acres that were included in the redevelopment plan. It was the same company that had hired the lobbyist, Wood, to pitch the plan to city staffers. It was the company that stood to gain millions in public funding if the City Council approved the redevelopment plan, which included their proposal to build a master-planned community. If the two had resigned from the redevelopment board immediately after staff presented the proposal, there likely would have been no ethical questions raised. But they did not resign. Instead, they stayed on the board for the two years the plan was under review, resigning only when the redevelopment board and the City Council were close to deciding. Thei r decision was to approve the plan and sign a contract with Commerce Associates.

Fieldman and Unger had received advice from Henderson City Attorney Shauna Hughes that they could remain on the board without a conflict of interest as long as they abstained on any vote regarding their company. That was bad advice. The two were in a position to influence the outcome of the redevelopment plan whether they voted or not. In public life, appearances of conflicts are as important to avoid as proven conflicts themselves, and this deal smelled. We agree with Henderson Assemblywoman Sandra Tiffany and City Council members Steve Kirk and Amanda Cyphers, who say this redevelopment deal warrants a review of the city's ethics codes, a review that we believe should result in swift reforms.